The Centurion - 6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six:

The Drums... They Beat

Jason did not know what the armored creature was but he felt an immediate bond. It was as if he were the princess in the fairy tales, his knight finally coming to rescue him. His father, having thought he was only coming to retrieve a political weapon... found his hard heart melt, the instant love of his own son warming it, the thaw leaking from his eyes in the form of tears.

“He knows who I am!” Agamemnon laughed, the years of weariness from endless wars falling from his face and replaced with joy.

“Filth knows filth and he is definitely your filth,” Eleanor said bitterly. She had hoped her son would have put up a fit, screaming with fright, having never seen a man let alone an imposing Centurion

before. She had tried to fill her son’s head with enough nightmares. Agamemnon tear filled joyous eyes could not hold back from

approaching his son. “No... it is the way all the Legatio are with Centurions and us with them... at least when they are young. We are

their protectors and they are our memory. We fight great battles so they

can sing of them to us. We know each other from birth. We cannot be separated. That was why you could never make me believe you had a daughter,” Agamemnon said as if reciting a poem.

Eleanor had had enough. “You have what you want. Now take him out of my sight!”

Agamemnon lifted Jason up into his arms, nuzzling his nose

against his son’s cheek. “Yes... he needs to be with his own people.”

“Good,” Eleanor said with disgust, glad to be finally rid of the

child.

Jason, his eyes wide open, a giant smile on his face, wrapped his small arms around his father’s muscular neck. He then planted a kiss on Agamemnon’s cheek before resting his chin on the general’s shoulder. He had never felt so safe in his, so far, short life.

The joy and happiness was nearly overwhelming for the general.

His son, a child of his own blood, was finally where he belonged. The

tears pouring from Agamemnon face trickled down on top of his son’s long brown hair. In his excitement Agamemnon hugged Jason closer to him, triggering a scream, tears of pain on his son’s face. It was then

that Agamemnon finally noticed the sling around his son’s right arm.

Lowering his son back down to the ground, Agamemnon turned his now dark gaze toward Eleanor. “Why is his arm in a sling?”

“Your ‘son’ is a disobedient, insolent brat,” Eleanor spat, not seeing the danger she was in.

Agamemnon, his heart now beating rapidly, drew his sword. “I warned you to at least care for him if not love him!”

“You will not dare kill me! Not here! Not away from your men!” Eleanor laughed hysterically, the room filling with her guards.

“Never ‘dare’ a Centurion,” Agamemnon snarled, moving in

closer, his face flushed red.

Jason, scared by his parents’ behavior crawled under his bed and closed his eyes.

“Guards!” Eleanor shouted, now trapped between the Centurion and the balcony.

Jason watched as Agamemnon walked backwards to the thick oak door, killing Eleanor’s bodyguards like a scythe to wheat. After reaching and bolting the door with only he, the Regent, and their son left alive, he walked back toward Eleanor, his breathing heavy.

“You will never make it out of here alive,” Eleanor threatened as Agamemnon raised his sword to strike.

Just as he was about to swing his sword at Eleanor’s slender neck, a sharp stabbing pain from his chest shocked him into dropping his blade as he fell down to his knees. In sudden realization Agamemnon

knew what was finally happening. The heavy breathing and rapid heart

had not been from his anger but were the telling signs of his death,

reaching the end of his forty year lifespan.

“No...” Agamemnon exhaled as his strength melted away.

Jason, on seeing the tall man fall to the ground felt an unrecognized pain of sadness. “NO!”

Crawling out from under the bed, he hurried toward his father, who was now flat on his stomach. Taking hold of the general’s neck, he tried to turn the giant man’s body onto his back.

So weak was Agamemnon now he only had the strength to turn his head on its side and call his son’s name. “Jason... please listen to me.”

Joining his father on his stomach, Jason looked into his father’s grey eyes and saw only pain.

Giving him a reassuring smile, Agamemnon gave his son a final promise. “Jason... you must live... they will come for you. They will love you.”

At the moment Agamemnon’s heart stopped, there came from outside the beat of drums...



The drums, the drums they beat, they boom, Of doom, of doom The drums, they beat of Centurions who come.

The horns and flutes, they blare, they wail

Of doom, of doom They blare the call of war to come. The Swords they clash, they strike, they ring Of doom of doom, The swords they spark from clashes fought The Centurions they cheer, they shout, they yell Of doom, of doom, Of victories won. ...The Centurion War Chant.

As written by the Legatio Dolfus Vex in the year 1021 of the Domus Empire



Sitting down on a chair, Eleanor glared at the open balcony

where the sound of the Centurion war drums was the loudest. “Boom... Boom... Boom!”

“Agamemnon’s officers are demanding to see their leader,”

Melissa explained. Eleanor let a small smile grow on her face as she tapped her

cheek with one of her long fingernails. “Show them their general.”

“Regent, that will send them into a frenzy!” “tap... tap... BOOM!”

“I know... there is no way we can escape this fight now, however

an enraged army will make more mistakes than an organized one.” “What about our citizens.”

“Let them flee. They will run out of the city and get in the way of the Centurions. I want all the storehouses seized however, their goods brought up to the tower. Our soldiers must hold out at least that long. This will be a long war.”

Out from the valley the drums stopped, the sudden silence then broken by the loud roar of angry men. “We cannot win this!” Melissa warned.

Standing up the Regent walked right up to her captain so their noses were almost touching. “We will win. The Labyrinth Tower has never fallen. You will conduct yourself as if you plan on winning. Do not forget, we have the son of Agamemnon.”

Picking up the general’s discarded sword Eleanor struck with all her strength and fury at Agamemnon’s neck, hacking the head from its body with the splattering of blood that stained her face and her regal white dress. Going down on her knees she picked up the decapitated head of the general and glared into the dead man’s gray eyes with a look of triumph. “No man is a match for me.”

“Yes Regent,” Melissa sighed.

Eleanor pulled her captain into a deep kiss, the blood on her face slipping into both women’s mouths. “Now remove this man’s body from my home and give him to those animals outside,” Eleanor ordered.

“At once, Regent,” her captain bowed.

As her bodyguards worked to lift Agamemnon’s headless body,

Eleanor turned her hard gaze on her frightened son. It was as if she

was seeing him for the first time as the man he would one day become.

That did not please her. Knowing how she had used her beauty to sway men, Eleanor could see how her own son’s charisma would grow over

time until it surpassed her own. Going over to the dresser filled with

Jason’s clothes, the Regent held each article up, examining each with a look of hatred.

Why, why hadn’t she given birth to a daughter. The midwives and witch women had assured her that potions and remedies and ice baths would give her a daughter. They had all failed her, however, and for that she had taken their lives.

Pulling out a long tunic that looked more like a girl’s dress, Eleanor hit on a solution. Jason was a boy but here in the tower he had no contact with any men. There was no reason she could not raise Jason as a girl, put him in dresses and give him dolls to play with. She would emasculate him, making him a freak of nature, as twisted as the tunnels of the Labyrinth itself so that no man or army would follow him on reaching adulthood. The more Eleanor thought on this, the more it amused her, let her son be a girl while she and her bodyguards acted as the real men.

Looking around the room, Eleanor found a sergeant guarding the door and waved her over. “I want all these clothes burned. Once you are done with that, have my seamstress report to me. We need to give the prince clothes fitting his station.”

“Yes Lady Regent,” the sergeant bowed.

Once the guards were gone and she was alone with her son, Eleanor made her way to the bed where Jason was trembling, sucking on his thumb. This time Eleanor gave her son a comforting smile, gently removing his thumb from his mouth. “Jason... must I need to tell you again about the monsters that have come to kill you, the beasts called Centurions.